Saturday, October 27, 2007

NBC Nightly News Takes Note of Bike-sharing

NBC Nightly News has taken note of bike-sharing. The broadcast of October 26 showcased Paris' Velib' noting just how popular it has been and how even city officials are surprised that the City of Lights would also become the City of Bikes.

One glaring error in the report was reporter, Keith Miller, explaining that "every large American city has expressed interested in bike-sharing except for San Francisco," as he's riding uphill in a Parisian neighborhood. Was this supposed to be an analogy showing why hilly San Francisco would not even consider bikes or bike-sharing? Well, this is not correct and NBC would have know this is they had viewed The Bike-sharing Blog on October 3. San Francisco is indeed getting its own bike-sharing program and has already selected the company to do it.

1 comment:

Paul’s post reads: "...San Francisco is indeed getting its own bike-sharing program and has already selected the company to do it..."

When it comes to bike-sharing programs I'm one of those people that really keep his ear pressed to the ground —I’ve had since the 60s. Unaware of this posting, that is to say before I read it, just a few minutes ago I got a call from Oliver J. Gajda, the Bicycle Program Manager for San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency. We spoke about various issues mainly related to my personal interest, which is to promote a feasibility study on the economic impact and benefits of bike-sharing on communities, corporations and individuals.

That having been said, I can tell you this with a high degree of assurance. The city is seriously giving a “preliminary” consideration to implementing bike-sharing system as a complement to its transit system. But with so many political and legal issues pending —not to mention that the deal between Clear Channel and the city is very far from being finalized— it would be premature make the above claim so definitively.